do excuse me for having failed to post for a few days but knowing The EFD (Friday) & UKIP (Saturday) Party Conference were on and well aware it would just be a repeat of the sound bites of such events in UKIP I felt it to be an appropriate time to spend a few days away (which we never announce in advance 😉

On return today I note from the many reports that the event almost totally lived down to prediction with the only real highlight being the number of people observed congratulating Nikki Sinclaire MEP, now an Independent who alone (with her team) and a little help from Mike Nattrass MEP & Trevor Colman MEP now that they have disassociated themselves from the vile extremism of The Pan EU Political EFD Group, she has achieved far more towards raising serious awareness and having delivered a petition of over 100,000 signatures at Drowning Street, in Petition towards an In/Out Referendum to Leave-The-EU has out performed the Plastic EUroSceptics and Judas Goats so prevalent in The Tories and amongst EUkip leadertship.

Itt is clear they have very little desire to Leave-The-EU as their income streams & bribes would cease and pension funds would collapse having been dishonestly gained.

It was almost amusing to watch the true supporters wishing to Leave-The-EU making every effort to curry favour with her and making every effort to welcome her and seek to convince her to return and those who felt their incomes and positions challenged doing all they could to avoid her – Farage included, even the stupid woman who in her ill mannered ignorance felt it incumbent on her to berate Sinclaire for her efforts – amusingly no one knew who the foolish woman was! Well she must have done a lot for UKIP and the cause of leaving the EU!

Nikki Sinclaire’s Petition as a concrete action to Leave-The-EU speaks so much more clearly than all of EUkip’s fluffy words and efforts to ReForm The EU, with their various extremist partners over the years.

Sadly there was absolutely nothing else of worth or merit to report from a very lack luster conference with around 400 in attendance and many of the same soundbites of recent previous years, the same calliber of low lifes and self serving scoundrels making the same noises to great adulation from a handfull of gullible followers mostly hoping for preferment or at very least crumbs from the table in some cases like Mick McGough and the like in return for their lies and willingness to show themselves for the unpleasant and dishonest people they most clearly are, like maggots and flies on a dung heap with their strutting poppinjay crowing from on top.

Mario Borghezio, an MEP with the anti-immigration Northern League party, who have campaigned against Muslims and the building of mosques, said Breivik had some ‘excellent’ ideas.

Speaking on an Italian radio show he said he agreed with the maniac’s ‘opposition to Islam and his explicit accusation that Europe has surrendered before putting up a fight against its Islamisation.’

‘Excellent’ ideas: Mario Borghezio, an Italian MEP for the anti-immigration Northern League party, left, said he agreed with terrorist mass-murderer Anders Breivik, right, on his views about Muslim immigrants and Islam in Europe

Though Borghezio added that he did not however agree with the use of extreme violence, or Breivik’s anti-Papal views, his comments immediately unleashed a storm of fury with his own party apologising to still grieving Norway.

Northern League chief Roberto Calderoli said: ‘His comments are terrible and completely unqualified and we can only apologise to the families of the victims for the delirium of what he said.’

The Northern League is a key ally of Berlusconi’s ruling right-wing coalition and, although the prime minister did not comment personally, members of his party also rounded on Mr Borghezio.

Carlo Giovanardi, an MP for the Christian Democratic Party, said: ‘Is it too much to ask for our Northern League friends to throw Borghezio out of their party?

‘We have vain hopes he will resign for what he said but that is unlikely to happen.’

Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also stepped into the row over Borghezio’s comments and said: ‘He should offer Norway his personal apologies.

‘We as a government cannot intervene directly with an MEP – but we have made it very clear that the best course of action would be for him to make a personal apology.

‘His own party has disassociated themselves from him and that is a very important sign – he must feel the duty to say himself that he is sorry for what he said.

‘Any message of racism, xenophobia and exclusion or which leads to an incitement of violence or an emulation of violence must be condemned.’

Horror: This picture shows Breivik stalking Utoya island, surrounded by the bodies of his young victims, with one in the water pleading for his life

Terror: Debris is seen on the street after the car bomb planted by Breivik detonated outside a government building in Oslo

Today internet forums were ablaze with furious comments against Borghezio with one popular post saying that he ‘needs to be locked up in a mental asylum and have the key thrown away.’

But there were some comments in his favour with some saying he was ‘speaking the truth’ and calling on the Northern League to ‘support him instead of attack him’.

A new headache: Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is still reeling from national debt problems and a string of high profile scandals

Borghezio himself was unrepentant and added: ‘I said what I said because I have the impression this massacre has a purpose, I don’t think this lunatic meant his act to have this outcome.

‘What we should ask ourselves is how can someone who was supposed to have been on a watch list been allowed to go around and do what he did?

‘Christians should not be sacrificial animals – they should be defended.’

Borghezio has a long history of anti-immigration campaigning – in 2005 he was found guilty of arson, after setting fire to pallets of some migrants sleeping under a bridge in Turin during a vigilante raid.

The centre-left opposition called for Borghezio to resign from the European Parliament.

David Sassoli, an MEP with Italy’s Democratic Left opposition, said: ‘It is a matter of shame for all of us that a representative of the ruling coalition made apologetic remarks about one of the cruelest acts of terrorism.’

UKIP supporters and those genuinely anti EU membership are clearly far from happy with the attrocious behaviour of Nigel Farage and his claque in his extremist EFD Group and when one then finds these self same scum of EU Politics turning up as guest speakers at UKIP events and are minded that The EFD members represent each other on EU Committees it is clear that with Farage and his leadership claque UKIP has no meaningful future acting on behalf of informed British people.

UKIP would seem to be determined to move itself from being a possible part of the solution to being a very clear part of the problem.

No one could reasonably say that Nigel Farage is other than a good performer and Liga one of the prostitutes with whom he was well publicised cavorting, as with Annabelle they have been both explicit and graphic in describing him as a good performer.

However I have never heard anyone with one wit of judgement, that could be respected, describe him as having any of the OQ (Officer Qualities) essential for a leader. He is an attrocious judge of character and it seems a worse strategic or tactical planner with no vision for the future much beyond his various scams, bank accounts and zip!

Yet again we have further provenance of his lack of integrity, self serving dishonesty and undeniable corruption – that is not for a moment to gain say he is UKIP’s greatest asset – sadly that is more a reflection on the low calliber of those he has gathered around him than of his abilities – a good sound bite man, a well rehearsed speaker and his scripts are well performed.

Sadly it is undeniable that he is both untrustworthy and untrusted as shown in the exchanges below from the UKIP controlled Forum managed by the weak, dishonest and venal Anthony Butcher in default of the political career he so aspired to!

the Northern League and UKIP are the two largest parties in EFD, each with 9 MEPs in the group out of a group total of 27 MEPs. And the leader of the Northern League MEPs – and co-president of EFD – is Francesco Speroni, who is one of the two MEPs to have made these astonishing remarks supportive of Norway’s worst ever mass murderer. So when Farage quite rightly demands a retraction and apology for the remarks, or else UKIP will suspend its EFD membership, he may well be signalling the end of the EFD group.

Compare your last sentence quoted above with what is actually happening. It took just 24 hours for the back-tracking to start!

Remember:

Speroni was directly quoted by the Guardian, saying:

“Breivik’s ideas are in defence of western civilisation”,and“I’m with Borghezio. I don’t think he should resign. If [Breivik’s] ideas are that we are going towards Eurabia and those sorts of things, that western Christian civilisation needs to be defended, yes, I’m in agreement”.

In a statement on 28 July, UKIP said Nigel Farage had contacted Speroni, his EFD co-president,

“to demand an immediate retraction and apology following his remarks and those of his fellow Northern League MEP Mario Borghezio . . . . If no retraction is forthcoming then UKIP will suspend its membership of the EFD group in which it sits alongside the Italian political party”.

On 29 July, UKIP’s follow up statement said Speroni had written to Farage saying that he condemns the massacre and the extreme fundamentalism in question – an addition to his earlier remarks.

Has Speroni withdrawn the statements he made in support of Borghezio?

No, he has not.

Has Speroni retracted his agreement with Breivik’s ideas?

No, he has not.

Has Speroni apologised?

No, he has not.

Has Nigel Farage suspended UKIP MEPs’ membership of the EFD as he said he would?

Apparently not. It seems Borghezio has been suspended by his party and UKIP says it is satisfied that this

“will send a clear message that they, and we will not have any truck with such disgraceful sentiments now or in the future”.

Farage is convening the EFD next week to suspend Borghezio from the group.

So that’s it. The book thrown at Borghezio; Speroni quietly forgotten. UKIP can trumpet that Farage has taken “prompt action”, and the EFD can survive with the temporary loss of one Italian.

Note that Farage’s demands for “an immediate retraction and apology” from Speroni are for home consumption only. The EFD‘s website doesn’t mention them, or the threat to suspend UKIP MEPs’ membership of the group.

Maybe he wasn’t trying to satisfy Guardian readers in particular, but to satisfy anyone who thinks that the comments made by Mr Borghezio were vile, which is hopefully the vast majority of people all over the world.

An interesting aspect of this is that one of those who has condemned Borghezio’s comments, calling them “terrible, unspeakable remarks”, is the Lega Nord MP and cabinet minister Roberto Calderoli, the man indirectly responsible for UKIP MEPs and their allies expelling the Lega Nord from their previous Independence & Democracy group.

Calderoli was not even an MEP, yet in 2006 his party was expelled from the Ind/Dem following his provocative comments and TV appearance wearing a T-shirt bearing a copy of one of the Danish Muslim cartoons.

There has been no talk of expelling Speroni and Borghezio, whose comments have caused the current outrage; only of UKIP MEPs ‘suspending’ their EFD membership.

And it looks like Farage is welching on even that!

He gave Speroni an ultimatum – make an immediate full retraction and apologise, or we suspend our membership of the group.

Speroni has done neither. He’s stuck two metaphorical fingers up at UKIP’s leader and Farage has backed down, talking now of convening the EFD Bureau to suspend Borghezio instead.

He wouldn’t need to run to the Bureau for consent if he’d kept his word and suspended UKIP’s membership. He could have done that all by himself!

Well that is not so good. What are they doing in the EFD? I didn’t think the Lisbon Treaty had anything to do with either freedom or democracy. In my view that would be far more offensive than something someone said in front of a load of emotional halfwits.

Presentation of the work programme of the Swedish Presidency (debate) 15 July 2009 Francesco Enrico Speroni, on behalf of the EFD Group.

We must overcome the crisis of confidence that undoubtedly exists. The poor turnout at the elections of this Parliament is a symptom of this, and to overcome it, we must act fully in accordance with the will of our electorate. We must also perhaps avoid making comparisons: your country borders Norway; I live near Switzerland. They are outside the European Union, but they live well all the same; they have the same problems, but they are no worse off than us, and here it is important to see and to demonstrate that it is worth having the European Union.

We need to create a single European legal system if we want to combat, at European level, crime that has become international and moves easily between banks, tax havens, financial markets and movable and fixed assets markets.

Quite. At the end of July, following the mass murder of young Norwegians by Anders Behring Breivik, UKIP issued two statements regarding comments made by their MEPs’ EFD colleagues Mario Borghezio and Francesco Speroni. On 28 July, UKIP wrote: “Nigel Farage said:

“Nigel Farage said: “I have written to the leadership of the Northern League party to demand an immediate full retraction and apology. If my request is not met, then we will suspend our membership of the EFD group”.

A clear and unequivocal undertaking.

On 29 July, following Speroni’s reply, UKIP wrote:

“Mr Farage is convening the governing Bureau of the EFD Group in the European Parliament next week in order to suspend Mr Borghezio from his membership of the group”.

Another clear and unequivocal undertaking, yet if Borghezio had retracted and apologised as Farage demanded, why was he to be suspended? And if he had not retracted and apologised, Farage (having suspended UKIP MEPs from the group as stated on July 28), would not then be in a position to convene the Bureau and suspend Borghezio.

So where is the retraction and apology, and on what date and with what outcome was the Bureau convened?

Because despite UKIP’s statements and Nigel Farage’s assurance, UKIP MEPs are still sitting and voting in the European parliament with their EFD colleagues Speroni and Borghezio.

Huffing and puffing empty promises to shut critics up at home; treated with contempt by MEPs he ‘presides’ over in Brussels; and all the time, out of sight of UKIP members, European parliament business as usual.

How utterly despicable!

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ALWAYS CHECK the right sidebar for details on people and events first.. .